What you get in a commercial floor

One continuous surface with no seams, no grout and no board edges, bonded to the slab and running wall to wall. That matters commercially before it matters aesthetically: there is no joint for grit to pack into, no edge for a trolley wheel to catch and lift, and nothing that has to be replaced piece by piece as it wears. It cleans with a mop and a machine rather than with a grout brush.

The build is put together for the work the floor does. Slab diamond-ground so the system keys into the concrete, cracks and joints opened out and filled, then coats and a topcoat chosen for the traffic, the cleaning regime and the chemicals the floor will actually meet. Slip resistance is specified rather than assumed, because a floor that is safe dry and treacherous wet is not finished. You choose the color and the sheen from samples put down on your own slab.

Every quote sets out the preparation, the coats, the topcoat and the finish, so it can be compared line for line against anything else you are holding. Commercial floors we have finished are on the gallery.

Specifying the entrance separately from the rest of the unit

Most quotes price a shop floor as one number across one area. That is the wrong shape for a retail unit, because the floor does not get treated the same way across its whole surface, and specifying it as though it does means overpaying at the back or underspecifying at the front.

The entrance is a different floor from the sales area behind it. Everything that comes off the sidewalk arrives there: winter grit, salt, road film, water off umbrellas and every wheel that crosses the threshold. It is the strip that gets mopped most and abraded hardest, and it is where the wear pattern of the whole unit starts. The back of house has a different problem again, usually spills, chemicals and point loads from stock rather than abrasion.

So we quote the unit in zones. The entrance and the main traffic line get the harder build and the topcoat chosen for abrasion, the sales floor gets the finish that suits how it is seen and cleaned, and the stockroom gets what it needs and nothing more. It costs less than putting the entrance specification everywhere and lasts far longer than putting the sales-floor specification at the door.

Why entrance floors fail first

Grit is an abrasive, and a doormat only ever catches part of it. What gets past is walked across the same few square feet by everyone who comes in, which is why the floor inside the door dulls, scratches and eventually breaks down while the rest of the unit still looks new. Add salt in winter and standing water off wet shoes and you have the hardest conditions in the building concentrated in its smallest area.

Under that, the older failure is usually bond. A resin floor lifts when it was never properly attached in the first place, and the shortcut that causes it is acid etching instead of grinding. Etching is a chemical wash: it cleans the surface but leaves nothing mechanical for the system to grip. We diamond-grind instead, which cuts the surface open, takes off laitance and any old coating or sealer, and leaves a profile the floor keys into. On a trading unit that is not a detail, because a bonded floor that fails takes a closure with it.

Joints and cracks are the third thing. Left as they are, they telegraph straight back through a new floor and open up again under wheeled traffic. Opening them out and filling them is what stops the finished surface from tracking every line in the slab underneath.

(630) 206-5602

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What the free site visit covers

We come and look at the unit before quoting. We measure it, check what the slab is doing under whatever is on it now, and work out with you which areas take which specification.

We also plan the sequence at that visit, because on a trading unit that is half the job. Work is staged so the floor is done in sections rather than all at once, and it can run outside your trading hours. What we will not do is give you a date to walk on it before we have seen the slab, because the honest answer depends on the system and the conditions on the day, and it is worth settling properly at the quote rather than guessing now.

You get a written specification covering preparation, coats, topcoat, finish and the order the work runs in.

Get your Lombard unit surveyed and priced

We work throughout Lombard and the neighboring DuPage suburbs from the shop in Roselle, with our own crew rather than subcontracted labor, which is what makes phasing a job around your trading hours something we can actually promise. The survey is free and there is nothing to commit to. Bring us in before you have settled on a specification and we will tell you which areas genuinely need the harder build and which do not, which is usually where the money is saved. You will leave the visit with the zones marked up and a written specification you can put in front of other contractors, and we would rather you did that than take our word for it. Call (630) 206-5602 or email info@evolveconcretecoating.com. We answer Monday to Sunday, 9 AM to 6 PM.

Commercial Flooring in Lombard, IL

What you get in a commercial floor

Specifying the entrance separately from the rest of the unit

Why entrance floors fail first

What the free site visit covers

Get your Lombard unit surveyed and priced

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